Sunset Boulevard (4 page)

what I call acting. Call me later for private lessons."

Shaking Gary's hand, Lewis said, "I'll leave my agent's name at the door."

He sauntered off, beyond pleased with himself. Grant looked over the top of his book,

studying Lewis in amazement, like a pink unicorn had just clopped by.

"Holy shit." Grant stood, running over to Kady, Gary, and Amelie. "That was fucking

awesome. Awesomely entertaining."

Gary shook his head. "Thanks for reminding me. I have to call the studio and beg them to use

Hunter again." Amelie's heart leapt at his name. "Hi, Marty," Gary said into his iPhone.

"Tryouts went well. Some, um, confident performers here. But no one quite like Hunter."

"Keep your fingers crossed, Amelie," Kady said, sitting down next to her. She was the only

person on set who knew about Amelie's Hunter crush, since she'd practically set them up, and

had been super-attentive to Amelie--at least as attentive as Kady was capable of being--all day.

"We can only hope."

"So, what you're saying is, Hunter's people know we're in trouble?" Gary's voice quivered. If

Hunter's agents knew they needed him, they'd ask for more money, and they were already on a

shoestring budget. "Fine, but I guarantee he's worth it. I don't think there's a single kid at this

school who can..."

His voice trailed off as he looked past Amelie to something behind her. Amelie swiveled

around to see Jake standing there, his red backpack hanging limply from his shoulder, his lean

frame clad in an orange polo shirt and worn brown cords.

"Hey, um, you ready for some math?" Jake croaked nervously to Amelie, blushing as he

noticed her director--and now her costars--staring at him. He recognized Kady Parker, the

beyond hot girl from
Die Twice
, a horror movie about girl detectives who raised murderers

from the dead. The director tapped the shoulder of a plump blond woman and gestured at Jake.

The blond woman approvingly clucked her tongue.

"Marty, I'll call you back," Gary said.

The casting director circled Jake in a slow walk. "We might have to take in a couple jackets but

height's the same," she said cryptically.

Kady jumped up from her chair, her blue eyes twinkling. "Gary, Gary, Gary, look.... He's

perfect."

Jake blushed. He had no idea what they were talking about, but if Kady Parker thought he was

perfect... well, he wasn't going to argue.

"Are you here for the tryouts?" The director, apparently named Gary, asked.

"Um, I'm just here to meet Amelie. I'm her tutor," Jake said stupidly, running a hand through

his curls. He felt uncomfortably on display. "Perfect for what, exactly?"

"Oh, um, never mind," Gary said dejectedly. "Amelie, your tutor is here."

Amelie finally got it. They'd been sizing up Jake as their new Tommy Archer. She looked Jake

over impassively, like a casting director would. And Jake, well, he looked like a Tommy

Archer. Like the football player with a hidden talent for writing; like the kind of guy who

would be drawn to a quirky girl like Lizzie Barnett, Kady's character; like a guy who might be a

star on the football field but would still feel the slightest bit awkward meeting his date's parents.

Amelie grinned to herself at the memory of Jake all dressed up to meet her mom on Saturday,

when he'd taken her to Lewis's party.

"Wait," Amelie said, picking up the audition pages and thrusting them at Jake. "Jake, can you

do me a favor?"

"Sure," Jake said, a little too eagerly. He'd had a crush on Amelie from the moment they first

met, but after their ill-fated not-a-date to Lewis Buford's party, he'd been trying to forget he'd

ever liked her. When she'd tried to set up their next tutoring session, he'd resisted the temptation

to call her back all weekend. But then he'd realized: A guy who
wasn't
hopelessly in love with

his tutor would call her back. So now he was going to shoot for normal. Which was an

improvement over awkward, love-struck freak.

"Read the lines for Tommy," Amelie said, suddenly inspired. Jake was a friend. He was no

Hunter, but working with him could be... okay.

Jake cleared his throat and looked down at his page. "So, um, this is kind of weird. The

basketball trophy is missing. And they say you took it." He lifted his hazel eyes to meet

Amelie's blue ones. He looked at her like he couldn't believe she would steal, or do anything

wrong. Because she wouldn't. Amelie was perfect.

"A basketball trophy?" Amelie read Kady's Lizzie Barnett lines, getting excited. Jake was a

dead-on Tommy Archer. And he didn't even know it. "You jocks are all the same. Why would

I take some symbol of this school's adoration of the meatheaded, patriarchal violent majority? If

you hadn't noticed, I'm an artist. Brass-plated plastic isn't something I collect." Amelie was

enjoying the chance to sass. At least she got to show the crew she could pull off rebellious high

schooler.

Jake threw up his hands in frustration. But he didn't try to lean in, like Rod Stegerson. And he

didn't cup her face in his hands, like Geoff Schaffer. "Give me a chance here, Lizzie," he said,

his eyes boring into hers. "I know you didn't take it. I want to help you." He capped the line by

nodding urgently, his eyes wide.

Kady and Grant were on either side of Gary, each clutching one of his shoulders. "This is the

guy, Gar," Grant said. "Sign him up and let's get this thing done. I have to go shoot
A Tale of

Two Cities
the third week of October."

"Come on, Gary," Kady said, squeezing Gary's arm as she grinned up at Jake. "He's perfect."

"Perfect for what?" Jake repeated, a little distracted by Kady. She was petite and sort of exoticlooking, with freckles dusting her olive skin, black hair, and inky blue eyes. "Perfect for

what?" Gary repeated, sounding almost amused. "Exactly! Unassuming, yet attractive. A little

bumbling, but graceful. Not overpowering, but still athletic. You just move here from Ohio,

kid?"

A sound resembling a laugh escaped from Jake's throat. "No, I've lived on Bedford Drive my

entire life."

"Okay, that's great. Don't change a thing," Gary said. "Go tutor, and tomorrow, come back and

be our Tommy Archer."

Jake looked up toward the ceiling of the library, scanning the corners for hidden cameras. This

had to be a joke, right? A reality show thing? The older man who stared at him was convincing

as a director, his shirt wrinkled and untucked, a baseball cap askew on his head. Kady Parker

had her arms crossed expectantly over her chest, her smirk friendly, her eyes welcoming. Grant

Isaacson, the dude from
Cocked
whom all the girls couldn't shut up about, was shaking his

head in amazement, like he wanted to hug Jake, but couldn't because they were two dudes, and

dudes just shook their heads happily. And Amelie, her red curls fanned out behind her, stared

at him with her high-definition blue eyes and mouthed, "Just say yes," a look of affectionate

impatience on her face. It was a face he had a hard time saying no to.

"Um," he stuttered, cringing that he was starting a sentence with "um" for the fiftieth time that

minute. "Okay, I'm in."

Jake considered himself a smart guy--at least when it came to problems with definite solutions.

But he wasn't winning points right now. He'd just agreed to be Tommy Archer in
Class Angel
.

Had he just solved a problem, or created one?

Amelie jumped up, hugging him, and Kady joined in, her petite frame stronger than it looked.

Grant and the director clapped him on the back.

"We got our guy!" Gary shouted, completely disobeying the library's indoor-voice rule. "We.

Got. Our. Guy! Yes!"

Jake caught sight of his own
Holy crap!
expression in one of the iMac monitors. This was

really happening. In his head, he heard the booming voice that narrated adventure movie trailers

say, "The math tutor has become... a leading man."

It was like something out of a teen movie. Which, Jake realized, he had better get used to.

THE GHOSTS OF GRUDGES PAST

Ash Gilmour stared at the solitary calzone on his black lacquer dinner plate. To any other guy,

one of the giant meat-and-cheese-filled pockets from Frankie & Johnnie's Pizza would be a

heavenly dinner, but it was his fourth this week. The kitchen was quiet, as usual, the only

sounds the tiny creaks and groans of his Beverly Hills house settling. Toting his half-empty

can of Rock Star across the kitchen, Ash opened the Sub-Zero fridge looking for a vegetable to

complement the mountain of dough. He was greeted with nothing but his own half-filled

takeout containers from the last few days.

He shuffled back to the mahogany kitchen table, setting a fork and knife down on one of the

six red Egyptian cotton place mats that the maid, Zelda, washed every week, even though Ash

was the only one who ate here, and he always sat in the same spot.

It hadn't always been like this.

When his mom and dad were still together, in grade school, and his older sister, Tessa, wasn't

away at college, the kitchen was always buzzing. His mom and dad would playfully argue over

who got the last glass of their favorite pinot noir, his mom making goofy sad puppy dog eyes

and his dad pretending to pull out his short faded gold hair before finally giving in. He could

almost see Tessa sitting across from him, her ash blond hair in the low pigtails she wore from

seventh grade through sophomore year, flipping through a copy of
Mental Floss
and spitting

out weird facts between bites of dinner.

He forced down another bite of the calzone, crumbs falling onto his faded Ben Sherman Union

Jack sweatshirt. He needed to get out of this ghost house. As he watched a blob of cheese ooze

onto the gleaming black plate, his iPhone sounded its familiar Jack White guitar solo. His dad's

stern face appeared on the digital screen.

"Hello?" Ash answered the phone. "What's up, Dad?" He winced at the enthusiasm apparent in

his voice. He sounded like a lovesick girl who'd been stood up for the prom.

"Ash, I'm in the middle of something, so let's make this quick," his dad's brisk baritone

crackled over the phone.

Ash rolled his eyes. It was just like his dad to call him but then act like Ash was the one

intruding. After the divorce, Gordon had become one of those harried jerks, thanks to a

newfound habit of staying out late, meeting models and starlets and partying with rockers not

that much older than Tessa. The mix CDs he'd so carefully made for Ash, with early cuts from

the bands and artists he was working with at the time, slowed to a trickle and then disappeared

altogether, and his clowning around gave way to a fog of constant grumpiness. But at least

back then he was still company--grunting over the headlines in the
L.A. Times
, occasionally

instructing Ash to read something about one of his musical prodigies in the Calendar section.

And Tessa was still around then, choosing to finish BHH instead of attending school in

Austin, where their mom lived. Then his dad met and married Moxie, an almost-supermodel

from Russia, and everything changed.

"Are you listening?" Gordon snapped. "We haven't seen each other in a while, huh?"

Like you care,
Ash thought, as he said, "No, I guess not."

Last April, his dad had finally married Moxie, who'd just given birth to their twins, Caesar and

Julius, and moved to a fresh new house for his
new
family in Malibu. Gordon wanted Ash to